


Vulnerant Omnes, Ultima...

by micehell



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-27
Updated: 2008-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:59:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One couldn't remember and one never forgot</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vulnerant Omnes, Ultima...

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case anyone was wondering, the missing word from the title is necat. The phrase translates, loosely, to: they all wound, the last kills (with an implied 'hours' in there), which I thought was fitting considering the subject matter. ;)

Ianto had done this with Tosh once. Well, not this exactly, but something like it, his hands still shaking, hers warm and firm, with apologies falling from her lips for leaving him behind. He'd kissed it away, not needing to forgive her for something he'd wanted her to do. Kissed away everything but sighs and moans and his name won free in startled pleasure.

He'd done other things with Owen. Things he'd been surprised Owen knew, hard and rough and verging too close to pain, but they'd both needed something after Jack had gone. Owen paying penance for a betrayal they all had made, Ianto wanting to forget what he'd almost had. Afterwards Owen had called him teaboy, had ignored him, or paid too much attention where he should have let things lie, but there'd been something besides anger underneath it. Something besides pain.

And the touch of his hand now felt good, was good, but he couldn't find anything below it but that anger and pain. He kept trying, his hands almost jacking himself raw, his nipples beneath the starch of his shirt chafing and sore with too much attention. But he needed to remember what it was like before it hurt so badly.

Ianto needed to, but he couldn't. He hadn't been able to with Lisa, either. It had been killing him then, to remember only what the pain felt like, and none of the pleasure. But Jack had seen it, had helped.

He laughed at himself, that wistful hope that Jack would see it this time. That he would know what to do to make it right. But to see it, Jack would have to actually be around, instead of out wherever he was. Haunting tall buildings, perhaps, or drowning in flesh that had no hold on him, that couldn't hurt him when they left. Ianto couldn't really blame him if he were. He'd thought of it himself, really, but while he'd always been the type who could sleep with a friend just because -- he was lonely, he was hurt, he just wanted _not_ to think for a while -- he'd never been any good with casual pickups. Half his relationships, before Torchwood, before Lisa, had been because he didn't know how to say goodnight properly.

And he had no friends left now, not outside of Torchwood. Too long ignored, creating distance and forgetfulness better even than Retcon. It was a common curse in Torchwood, the path not chosen becoming more distant by the day. It happened to all of them eventually… or at least most, if Gwen could hold on to what she had.

But Ianto was trying to remember pleasure, and he didn't want to think of Gwen. He tried never to let jealousy touch him where she was concerned, but he couldn't always stop it. Gaining Jack's affection with so little effort, so little offered. Ianto tried to remember a single person who had ever loved him because of his being difficult, rather than in spite of it. Tried to remember someone who would have loved him if he hadn't given everything back.

Ianto squeezed flesh growing soft, pushing that thought away too, because he was already too sad, too hurt, too Ianto, and he didn't want to feel gravity pulling at every atom, weighing him down. He wanted only to feel the soft press of skin to skin, the warm swell of arousal. He wanted to fly free from it all, not bound to the earth, to grief, at all.

Of course he couldn't do that, couldn't even break free from his own thoughts, from the knowledge that it was wrong to do this here, the couch they'd shared a thousand times at his back, their desks in front of him, the CCTV cameras still going. Wrong and confusing and jumbled together, because he didn't know if was he doing this for the comfort and relief, or because some part of him hoping Jack would see, would come, and how sad was that. So he ran from that thought, too, not wanting to spiral down the convoluted trails in his mind, one of the few things in life he couldn't push into clean, neat lines.

Instead he let his head fall back against the wall, hoping the brief flicker of pain would clear his thoughts, scatter them. It just made him think again of Jack, another chaos he couldn’t tame. Ianto had done this with Jack once, smiling and coy and luring Ianto into doing this very thing, in this very place. Watching with avid interest until Ianto had inadvertently almost knocked himself out, then laughing at him. But gently, soft, careful hands soothing away the pain. Though that memory was wrong here, too, just another thing he couldn't have.

Not that any of it mattered, anyway, since it was simply wrong to do this here like they were still alive, like this wasn't the worst wake in history. But he couldn't go back to his flat, where it was just wrong altogether, where there was no trace of them. No memories at all.

So he didn't push the thought of Jack away when it came again. Let it hold him, hold all of them, in their disorganized glory, washing over him, through him, in photoflash echoes of what had been, and what couldn't be, and what was, raw flesh momentarily sated, his body exhausted, his mind finally, finally shutting down towards sleep.

::::::::::

He watched from the monitor in the office, a bird's eye view. It was easier up here to stay removed from it all. Distant. Untouched.

It was harder, too, watching when he wanted to do more. Wanted to lose himself in half-lidded eyes, desire glittering at him through the shadow of lashes, calling to him from the arch of pale, exposed throat; head laid back against the wall, all of him laid bare to Jack's touch.

But Jack didn't go. He knew Ianto was hurting, knew he was seeking refuge in old memories, seeking refuge from too new ones, just as he had after Lisa. He'd helped then, drawn Ianto back, little by little, touch by touch, into the world. Or at least their little strange part of it.

But he hadn't counted on how much Ianto had drawn him back, too. How much all of them had. It was warmth and friendship and love, even if it was often disguised as snark and sarcasm, and Jack always forgot, in the times between, how much he missed it. How much he needed it.

But he never forgot, even then, how much he hated for it to end. When John had been so openly amazed by the resurrection trick, so obviously jealous of the life without end, Jack had wanted to scream at him that he didn't understand. Just like Jack hadn't understood at one time. The price he paid for this 'gift'… it was too high.

So he watched instead, letting nothing touch him, not even his own hand.

Or he tried at least. Tried to remember why it was better to stay apart from the mortals, from the lives that ended too early, always leaving him behind. But he kept remembering Tosh's laugh, the light of discovery in her eyes, the quickly hidden hurt when Owen's foot was firmly planted in his mouth, and his head was fully planted in his ass. He remembered the flash of guilt in Owen's eyes when his brain finally caught up with mouth, and the mischievous glint in it when he'd thought of a good joke, rowdy and bright over pizza and beer.

And he tried to remember why it was better with strangers, from people who didn't know him and didn't want to, who never looked at him and expected more than he gave. But he kept remembering Ianto's face when he asked him why he'd left, the nervous, awkward way he'd accepted their first date, and how he'd follow Jack's lead, the direction of his hands, his experience, right up until he didn't anymore, laughing and rolling Jack over, looking down with a focus that scared Jack to his very bones, and thrilled him beyond even that.

He tried. But he couldn't help but mirror Ianto's touch, remembering what the real thing felt like, and knowing he should be down there, feeling it now. But he didn't go, letting himself have the illusion of being safe from hurt, safe from pain, for one more night. When Ianto woke, that would be time enough for Jack to find his way back across burned bridges.

Again. But then he was always retaking ground that he'd already won, and that he always lost. Always remembering how much it hurt to lose it.

Looking at the sleeping figure below, messy and vulnerable in a way he never was when awake, Jack let his hesitation go, let himself smile again, knowing he'd always remember that, too.

/story


End file.
